No. 14, January 2018 Table of Contents Selected articles linked  Newspaper of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth and CUNY students from the Internationalist Clubs, for the program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, published in accord with the Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

 

Beware Trump/Democrat Deal Defend DACA and All Immigrants! By CUNY Internationalist Clubs and the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth On September 5, Donald Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Many of the estimated 800,000 young undocumented immigrants could face deportation as early as March 2018. The CUNY Internationalist Clubs joined protests, raising the call to defend DACA and ALL immigrants, and for mass worker/immigrant action to defeat the racist onslaught. In the Revolution leaflet printed here, we had warned that Trump would try to make precisely such a deal with the Democrats, using the immigrant youth registered under the program as bargaining chips. Sure enough, a few days later, Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi announced that they had made a “deal” with Trump, in which DACA recipients could stay in exchange for Democratic support for increased “border security” and immigration enforcement. Some immigrant activists saw right through the “deal,” and threw it back in Pelosi’s face at an event September 18 promoting the DREAM Act, chanting “we are not a bargaining chip.”As revolutionary Marxists, we warn that the Democrats as well as Republicans are enemies of immigrants, and deporter-in-chief Obama paved the way for Trump. We oppose any deal with Trump to “save” aspects of DACA at the expense of the millions of supposedly “less talented and deserving” immigrants. We demand: full citizenship for all immigrants. Defend DACA and All Immigrants! (7 September 2017, updated 27 December 2017)

Revolutionary Internationalist Youth Founded This past August, the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth was founded as the youth section of the Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International. One hundred years after the 1917 October Revolution, the RIY aims to be a training ground for young revolutionaries, as part of the common movement of the IG/LFI, to carry through to victory the genuine communist program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. The formation of the RIY has involved extensive study of the history of Marxist youth groups going back to the Communist Youth International, founded in 1919 on the tradition of Karl Liebknecht and the Leninist principle of combining study with action. It is has been forged through sharp political struggles against the class-collaborationist politics of Maoism and the various brands of social democracy and for the program of revolutionary Trotskyism. We publish here the Founding Declaration of the RIY. Revolutionary Internationalist Youth Founded (August 2017)

For Labor/Black Mobilization Against Racist Cop Terror Trump’s Racist Vendetta Against Black Athletes Donald Trump has been on a racist tear this season, engaged in an furious vendetta against protesting black athletes of the National Football League. It started in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick, then quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, refused to stand for the “Star Spangled Banner” in protest against the ongoing racist police murders of black and Latino people. Kaepernick has been blacklisted by the NFL, but the “Kaepernick effect” hasn’t gone away. The protests of 2017 became more widespread in response to Trump’s blatant racism. Last year there were at least 1,188 people killed by cops. Part of the reason for the prominence of protests by black players has been the dearth of mass protests like those in 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Many of the main leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have channeled support into the Democratic Party and diverted the protests into electoral politics. There should be tens of thousands in the streets mobilized against racist police murder. But to actually have an effect requires much more, above all breaking the political stranglehold of the partner parties of capital. Trump’s Racist Vendetta Against Black Athletes (January 2018)

I Am Not Your Negro James Baldwin in Racist America I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary film based on two works by the great black gay novelist, playwright and essayist James Baldwin (1924-1987). It is directed by Raoul Peck, the Haitian-born film maker who also directed Lumumba, about the assassination of the Congolese independence leader, and The Young Marx. The film is important for young revolutionaries to see. It powerfully combines dramatic historical footage and Baldwin’s stirring, courageous denunciation of the centrality of racism to U.S. society. Thus, while the movie doesn’t put forward a revolutionary program – nor does it claim to – it vividly dramatizes why the “color-blind” liberalism and tepid reform schemes for a “juster” capitalism under a refurbished Democratic Party put forward by the likes of Bernie Sanders cannot overcome racism. The material reality of black oppression continually generates the racist ideology that America’s rulers use to divide the working people. As opposed to the lilberal integrationism embodied by Martin Luther King, or the dead-end of black nationalism, we fight for revolutionary integrationism, to pull up capitalism’s system of racial oppression by its roots. That requires learning the lessons of history, and this honest film can be a powerful aid in learning those lessons. I Am Not Your Negro, James Baldwin in Racist America (January 2018)

Hurricanes, Colonial Government, Wall Street and Washington University of Puerto Rico Students, Faculty and Workers Under Siege For All-Out Worker/Student/Teacher Action to Defeat the Assault on the UPR! Following hurricanes Irma and Maria this past September, the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) was left in tatters. Meanwhile, several thousand UPR students have abandoned the island altogether. This mass migration of youth is a direct result of Puerto Rico’s economic crisis, exacerbated by the extortionate demands of Wall Street hedge funds and Washington bureaucrats. Today the bankers and U.S. imperialist government completely control the island’s finances through the Junta de Control Fiscal (Financial Control Board) put in place by Congress and then-president Barack Obama. And the University of Puerto Rico is tops on la junta’s hit list. What that means for the UPR is massive budget cuts. Upon hearing of plans for a budget-ax murder of their school, UPR students took swift action. After initial protests, beginning on April 5, students occupied the university for 72 days, blockading the gates. Today, with the mass of the population in desperate straits deprived of the basic necessities of modern life, the immediate struggle is for survival. But if that fight is waged with a political perspective taking aim at the ruling class that has condemned them to misery, this calamity can be a starting point for militant class struggle. The demand for free, quality public education for all, along with other democratic demands (including for the independence of Puerto Rico) will only be assured when those who produce the wealth take power and extend socialist revolution internationally. University of Puerto Rico Students, Faculty and Workers Under Siege (December 2017)

U.S. Imperialism and British Colonialism in the Indian Ocean The Chagos Archipelago, also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), was excised from Mauritius (then a British colony) in 1965. Its largest island, Diego Garcia, has been home to a U.S. military base since 1971.  The base on Diego Garcia is of great geopolitical importance for the British and U.S. imperialists, serving as a staging ground for imperialist attacks in the Middle East, a projection of imperialist power in Africa and South Asia, and a “black site” for their program of “extraordinary rendition,”  moving “terror suspects” from country to country for detention and torture. In order to secure this prime location as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” the entire population of the archipelago was coerced into leaving the islands or forcibly removed between 1965 and 1971. This is the story of how this colonialist/imperialist crime took place. U.S. Imperialism and British Colonialism in the Indian Ocean (January 2018)

The Bolshevik Revolution, Leon Trotsky and the New York Public Library Here it was: the 100-year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the New York Public Library had organized an exhibition. So when the Library announced a symposium on the Russian Revolution with some academic “experts,” we in the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth decided to attend. All five of the speakers were decidedly against the October Revolution (big surprise). Lenin and Trotsky were demonized, misquoted and slandered. The gains of the October Revolution were not mentioned at all. They even retailed an apocryphal story about Lenin calling to compromise with capitalists to get American financing. For all their made-up stories, it was curious that nobody mentioned a real story about Leon Trotsky and the New York Public Library. The night that Trotsky got off the boat in January 1917, Nikolai Bukharin dragged him and Natalia Sedova up to the 42nd Street library where the lights were blazing and any worker could come and read until almost midnight. No longer. Lenin also admired the NYPL. But in this epoch of decaying capitalism, public services are cut to the bone. The Bolshevik Revolution, Leon Trotsky and the New York Public Library (January 2018)

Outrage Over Fascist Murder and Imperialist Threats Hunter College Speak-Out Against Racist Repression and War Provocations On August 12, anti-racist activist Heather Heyer was murdered by a Nazi in Charlottesville, Virginia where hundreds had gathered to protest a fascist  mobilization “defending” a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Donald Trump declared  that “very fine people” were among the Hitlerites and Ku Klux Klansmen. Shortly before the Charlottesville attack, and just after the 72nd anniversary of the U.S. A- bombing of Hiroshima, Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against North Korea. U.S. war provocations against North Korea have been a staple of both Democratic and Republican administrations since the Korean War, in which U.S. imperialism under Democrat Harry Truman killed 3 million Koreans. On August 31, the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York held a speakout “against racist repression and war provocations,” highlighting the connection between racist terror “at home” and imperialist war abroad. Hunter College Speak-Out Against Racist Repression and War Provocations (January 2018)

DSA Dodges Debate “Socialism: What It Is (and Isn’t)” Since the election of Donald Trump, the term “socialism” has been a popular topic of discussion among those disillusioned with the status quo. Although the word has gained currency, still fixed in the minds of many are the lies about socialism propagated by the bourgeois class. These lies have also been used by pseudo-socialist groups that want to reform an unreformable system, and by capitalist politicians like Bernie Sanders to funnel disillusioned youth back into the Democratic Party. On September 7, the Hunter College Internationalist Club issued a debate challenge to the Hunter College Young Democratic Socialists of America on the topic “Socialism: What It Is (and Isn’t).” Six weeks later the YDSA responded that they had  “no intention of continuing to engage” with us. The Internationalist Club went ahead with the event anyway, holding a forum/“open chair debate” on October 19, leaving a chair on the platform open in case they changed their minds. We took the opportunity to explain our revolutionary communist perspective on socialism and how it differs from the junior social democrats. “Socialism: What It Is (and Isn’t)” (January 2018)

CUNY Internationalists Initiate Committee to Defend Immigrants and Muslims When Donald Trump signed his infamous “Muslim ban” against travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries on January 27 of last year, furious protests erupted across the U.S. Activists of the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York joined over 2,000 demonstrators at JFK airport, demanding “Let them in!” During the following week, the Internationalist Clubs twice held speak-outs at Hunter College to protest these racist attacks. We called to mobilize the power f the multiracial working class to defeat the anti-immigrant onslaught, and underlined how the Democrats had greatly expanded the immigration police. A few days later, students from the Hunter College Internationalist Club, along with some faculty members and university staff, formed the Committee to Defend Immigrants and Muslims. The Committee demanded that CUNY not give any federal agency any information directly or indirectly revealing immigration status, and declared that if a CUNY student or member of their family is seized by I.C.E, there should be a citywide walkout by students, faculty and staff. One of the main tasks of the Committee is to help build a rapid response network seeking to defend students and their families against the threat of deportation and racist attacks. CUNY Internationalists Initiate Committee to Defend Immigrants and Muslims (January 2018)

If You Work, or You’re an Immigrant – Forget About It!  CUNY: Cuomo’s “Free Tuition” Scam A Racist, Anti-Working-Class Scheme By Class Struggle Education Workers It was a big PR show: At LaGuardia College in January 2017, New York governor Andrew Cuomo, with Bernie Sanders at his side, unveiled a new plan for “free tuition” at the City and State universities of New York (CUNY and SUNY). Sanders proclaimed it a “revolutionary idea for higher education.” But if you’re a CUNY student, struggling to get by, working part time, skipping lunches, behind in the rent, or were born someplace else, this plan will not help you. And if you don’t graduate in four years, you will have to pay all the grant money back. Meanwhile tuition will increase by $200 a year for the next five years at all SUNY and CUNY schools. This fraud will apply mainly to students from middle class families who don’t have to work. Class Struggle Education Workers instead calls for open admissions and free tuition for everyone. CUNY: Cuomo’s “Free Tuition” Scam (17 December 2017)

Mobilize Labor/Black/Latino Power to Stop the Fascists! Dangerous Provocateurs: Milo Yiannopoulos and His Fascist Entourage The Milo Yiannopoulos bigotry road show may be coming soon to a city near you. There will be an orgy of racism, patriotism, misogyny, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism. Aboard his bandwagon will be a slew of fascists and white supremacists of varying stripes. This moving festival of race-hate poses a clear and present – and potentially deadly – danger to the working class and oppressed on several fronts. Currently, Yiannopoulos is on a self-titled “Troll Academy Tour” with upcoming events in Arizona and scheduled for October 31 at California State University at Fullerton (CSUF). The Revolutionary Internationalist Youth says that for anyone genuinely committed to defense of the oppressed, there can be no doubt that Yiannopoulos’ ghoulish Halloween hate-fest should be shut down by mass action.  It is crucial to understand that provocations by small numbers of fascists, along with their fascistic fellow travelers like Yiannopoulos, seek to bring the power of the capitalist state – the courts and cops – against any and all who oppose their genocidal politics. We need to mobilize a greater power, that of the working class leading all the oppressed, to stop the fascists in their tracks. Dangerous Provocateurs: Milo Yiannopoulos and His Fascist Entourage (20 October 2017)